Embracing our Doubts, Fears, and Anxieties for Lent? (3/4/12 - 3/24/12)

This week begins the third week in the season of Lent. Even around the time of the early church the Orthodox tradition has called it Great Lent. Lent is roughly a 40 day church season in which Christians prepare for the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Maundy Thursday – which leads Christians and the Church to reflect on the mystery and fulfillment of Christ’ incarnation, that is, his death and resurrection. This three day time period is called the Triduum, and comprises Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Resurrection Sunday.

For many Christians throughout the ages (including Nicky and I) this period in the life of the church was and is the most important time of the year. For it is in this time that the church has us contemplate our mortality, self-examine our sins and consciousness, enter into the darkness of sin through our baptism, and rise with Christ victorious over sin and death. It is here where Christ conquerors death itself by the Descensus Christi ad Inferos "descent of Christ into hell" or the Harrowing of Hell. It is here where we Christians begin our baptized life. While many Christians (including my extended family, grandparents, and parents) have believed baptism to be a deep conviction of our religious commitment to Jesus, Paul says that we:

…have been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him. (Colossians 2:12-15)

Notice the verbs that Paul uses while speaking of baptism and the cross of Christ: “buried” “raised up” (2x), “dead” “forgiven us” “canceled” “disarmed” “triumphed.” This focus on verbs signifies that Paul is characteristically concerned with the actions of God—the concrete, specific action of God—and not God’s character, nature, being, or attributes, except as those are evidenced in concrete actions. This focus on verbs commits us in profound ways to Jesus Christ, to live a baptized life while never forgetting that it is Jesus who is said to have done these deeds. Remember that just like the death and resurrection of Jesus enabled the church to live, and move, and have its being, so too does our baptism begin this life in the church, God’s redeemed humanity.

Somewhere in the deep recesses of my family’s unpolished and indescribable language existed a life of deep religious commitment and fervor, a seemingly unshakable bastion of firm convictions, free from doubt, fear, and anxiety. However I personally sometimes feel that this baptized life (that we have been forcibly submerged into and raised as new creations out of death and into a life with God) does not define me. I read my grandparents bibles, hear stories from family and only occasionally hear the “stuff” we like to push under the rug. I know I sometimes personally doubt, have fears, and am intensely anxious about those promises of God offered to me. Sometime I ask “are they really true?” An open space where I can be affirmed in my questions is during Lent  The Lenten practices of contemplating our mortality and self-examination seen in this light should not then be understood as part of an external, pharisaical system of legalities, rigid systems and do’s and don’ts,  but an open space of deep introspection. “Religion” then is a given grace for God’s glory, so we can battle our suspicions and doubts and dwell in the waters of baptism. An interesting article related to this idea is called Atheism for Lent by Merold Westphal, and you can find it here.

Maybe I will write notes of doubts and despairs in the margins of my bible so one day my grandchildren can sympathize with my faith story. My parents have been excellent in showing me a full and robust faith, free from sentimentalism. Often this is all one can ask for. 

F.Y.I

To understand why sentimentality is so bad for Christian faith, here is a video where Stanley Hauerwas, Christian, Texan, and Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University, explains it:

Sentimentality from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.